GWL 13th August 1917

“Have you noticed what a large proportion of people in this world are quite incapable of doing as they are told? For example, take this place. The young officer is told what day he has to report here, and where he has to stop on the way down. Do you think he can do that? Not a bit of it. He arrives here about 36 hours too soon, with no rations, and expects me to feed him and his men. Some of them are the limit. This morning I received a bill from a gentleman in Aldershot. For the last 9 years I have refused to pay it. He is a bike man who I never patronised. The bill started at 1/6, it has now reached 5/6. He is one of the biggest pirates on the face of this earth..

“Rather warm still. We have had no rain for months. Russia seems to be giving a pretty fair exhibition of folly. How a nation that can demand £500 for unskilled labour can consider itself fit to govern itself I cannot imagine. It seems a pity they don’t call Petrograd “St Petersburg” again. There seem to be more Germans than Russians in it.”

On August 14th China declared War on Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although China played no real part in the War, they did take back Tientsin from the Germans. George had been based in Tientsin at the outbreak of the War as part of a multinational force including the British and Germans.